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How many geoengineering international treaties will be listed on the World Legal Information Institute's database at the end of 2024?

Climate change geoengineering, defined by the United Kingdom’s Royal Society as “the deliberate large-scale manipulation of the planetary environment to counteract anthropogenic climate change” (Shepherd et al. 2009). Geoengineering involves the removal of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, or attempts at reflecting more energy away from the planet to counter warming (Markusson et al., 2013). Geoengineering is often presented as a complement, and sometimes alternative, to climate mitigation and adaptation.

There are serious and complex governance issues which need to be resolved if geoengineering is ever to become an acceptable method for moderating climate change. It would be highly undesirable for irreversible global geoengineering to occur before appropriate governance mechanisms are in place. The Royal Society has published a set of geoengineering governance principles, known as The Oxford Principles, which aims to guide the collaborative development of geoengineering governance, from the earliest stages of research, to any eventual deployment. These principles are:

  • Principle 1: Geoengineering is to be regulated as a public good
  • Principle 2: The public should participate in geoengineering decision-making
  • Principle 3: Geoengineering research and results should be publicly disclosed
  • Principle 4: There should be independent assessments of the impacts
  • Principle 5: governance systems should be developed before geoengineering methods are deployed

The World Legal Information Institute's International Treaties Collection database currently lists a total of six international treaties that are related to the governance of geoengineering.

How many geoengineering international treaties will be listed on the World Legal Information Institute's database at the end of 2024?

Resolution

This question resolves as the number of geoengineering-related documents listed on the World Legal Information Institute's International Treaties Collection database on December 31st, 2024. The relevant search will include the following search terms:

"Climate engineering" OR "geoengineering" OR "Solar radiation management" OR "Stratospheric Particle Injection" OR "Stratospheric aerosol injection" OR "Marine cloud brightening" OR "Ocean sulfur cycle enhancement"

Categories: Energy and Climate Series, Energy and climate - geoengineering efforts

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